Moving forward. What is moving forward like? It’s different for a lot of people. Would you agree we are all different? If you agree with that then you can agree we all move forward and grieve in our own way. Doing so can take someone longer than you, shorter than you or who knows. Honestly are we ever over, truly over what happens when we lose something, someone and or go through a trauma? We are never over it. We just learn how to live with it and how to move forward.

(Hand lettering by me)

Some things happened during my healing process that made me want to crawl into a corner and never come out. With already a silent subject that no one wants to discuss, due to being too raw and open and vulnerable. Why? Because we fear rejection, blame, judgment, unsolicited advice, comparison or worse of what happened to us. We honestly owe no one an explanation. Why did I seek so hard to begin this blog and to tell our story? Why did I feel it so necessary to share this sacred loss with anyone to be honest? Why? Why the hell did I put myself on a stage for all to see, judge, mock, and more? To be transparent I may sound hurt and I am. I have every right to be hurt. The way we react to things during grief is no ones business to judge and critique.

I’ll tell you why I began this blog. I got a sign. If you’re spiritually connected or if you are faithful you know what I’m talking about. I’ll never forget it, I was sitting at the edge of my bed before going for my surgery (D&C) and heard a voice telling me to share my story and it’ll be bigger than I imagine and help so many. To be honest I wasn’t ready to share it with anyone. However I did. Not for you. For me, to help me and to help others.

After the first post a outpouring of women flooded my inbox. Not with messages for me about my life and what has happened. About them! How already this sharing has made them feel not alone and not have to hide and stay silent! That is what I am doing it for. Right there. The fact I can help someone and build a community of help for myself. Believe it or not I really do care about people. I’m one of the most empathetic people. That could be a flaw in some eyes. That’s just me and I take pride in it.

What if I told you that everyday is a challenge? That I choose to smile. That I choose to be nice to others despite what is going on with me. What if I told you that I’m reminded to this day of this loss by the now 3rd infection that I have and that nothing has been back to normal since the D&C? What if I told you That I choose to love myself and tell myself positive affirmations every day? That I am giving myself grace. That it’s only been 2.5 months since my loss and that’s not a lot of time to be “over” someone you lose. Just a reminder to those that do want to not be so nice.

How is it anyone’s place to feel the need to throw out your hurtful comments that cut like a knife? How is it anyone’s place to say how I or we should react to things after a loss? How is it that those that say they are there as support are the ones that end up hurting you? How is it that it’s ok to say these things yet were the ones cheering us on to share our story and were telling us to take our time and heal. What a shock. I remember a few days after posting my first blog a friend of mine reaching out telling me that they hope that we have a good support group and that they hope no one says hurtful things. I never thought I’d get to hear even one of the hurtful things that were said. I am fine though. I can move on and move past it, however I can never forget it. Let alone not sure I can forgive it yet.

So fast forward to now. Now where I am all healed to an extent. Right after the D&c and few weeks go by and I get a UTI, get medication to treat that. All while still bleeding for over a month straight. After a situation arises one Friday night after some things were said I emailed my dr. Said I didn’t feel good around certain situations and people. I go in and they continue to quiz me. I was diagnosed with postpartum. A few more weeks go by and I feel weird. Go into dr and have BV. Get on strong medication for that. Then after that I got oral thrush- candida in my intestines. All while now being anemic due to the amount of blood loss and iron deficiency.

Going in for an ultrasound internal and external was not so fun. The same room I got great news in. While already just pushing through. The internal was painful enough. I was asked by the technician why I was there. Told her due to the amount of blood loss. The weekend prior where all I wore were maxi pads every hour because of the amount of blood loss and was in bed all weekend. She asked why I had a D&C. Explained it all. She comes back goes to do the internal. Says “so how old is your baby” I just looked at her. I was so confused what she was asking and if it was a joke. I literally just had told her I had a D&c for a miscarriage. She looks at me and said “oh that’s right. So are you going to keep trying” at that point I was nice back but all I could think was wow. The whole reason why I was in this appointment was because of the excessive blood loss and coming up pregnant still in a test 2 months later. So checking to see if any tissue was left. Luckily no.

Postpartum depression is real. Even if you didn’t give birth to your baby. Some of my immediate feelings have been. Nightmares. Nightmares on what she looked like. Nightmares that displayed my fear and feeling of emotions of not being able to grow my family. I wanted to be able to show the world who Laila was. Yet I myself was afraid to even talk about her. I was afraid to bring her up in conversations with people in fear of judgement or talking about a baby I never held. A baby they never even saw other than on a print out of an ultrasound piece of paper. I didn’t want to sound like a crazy person or be viewed in a manner that people would judge me. I was so afraid of and still am of what others think and view of all of this. The biggest thing my dr told me is “I don’t think you’ve been selfish at all. I don’t actually think that you’ve truly let sink in what trauma you’ve actually been through. You keep trying to help others through your pain and let others hurt you in the mean time. Take distance. Take time for you and truly be selfish in this moment of healing”

I’ve been working on spiritual yoga, meditation and journaling. Digging into my own self and learning to love myself. I’ve dropped 15 lbs since this and learning to look at this loss of weight not to be shadowed. Learning to love my body. Learning to be gentle on myself. Trying over and over and going through so many losses I’ve lost the self love and confidence for myself. It’s almost where I hated my body and how it’s killed off all life that ever tried to come into it.

So each day I wake up and have a ritual. Loving myself and telling myself I’m going to be gentle on you. You’re a warrior and you’re so strong but you deserve love.

I’m so thankful to a friend of mine who is a energy healer. The biggest thing she said that sticks with me is. You don’t have a choice in self love and intentions to set your day. It’s a must and can take 2-15 min find your way. That right there has stuck with me.

I’m working on only worrying about me and the people that want to be in our lives in a positive way. Today I am infection free and just working on the anemia and working on moving forward. That’s all We can do.